Like Families Do
by seemslikeaporno
Summary: "You can tell me anything," Sam tacks on as an afterthought, shifting so that she's facing Cat straight-on instead of watching her from the corner of her eye. Or, Sam and Cat talk about their families. / SamCat.


_Like Families Do_

( Sam and Cat talk about their families. Written for a prompt on sam_and_cat at livejournal. )

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"Hey, Sam? Are you awake?"

Sam blinks a few times, rolling over onto her back to cast her new friend a bemused look. Cat is standing a little hesitantly at the edge of the pull-out bed, twisting a red strand of hair around her finger, lower lip sucked between her teeth. Sam thinks about snapping at her, telling her to go to bed because it's three in the morning and she's _tired_, but. She can't bring herself to do it, doesn't like it when she accidentally - or purposefully - hurts Cat's feelings.

"I am now," Sam says instead, sitting up and scooting over. She pats the empty spot beside her, smiles. "It's warm. From my butt." She wiggles her eyebrows and Cat laughs like she knew she would, even if the joke was on the wrong side of stupid. Cat drops onto the mattress, tucking her legs underneath her and resting her hand on her ankle.

"Can I talk to you about something?" She asks after a minute, meeting Sam's gaze in a startling moment, tugging a breath straight from Sam's lungs.

"Yeah, sure. Shoot." Sam makes a vague gesture with her hand, telling Cat to go on.

Cat averts her eyes in a movement that is as sudden as before, fingers tightening around the skin of her ankle. "Can I...talk to you without you laughing at me?" She asks, her voice quiet, uncertain.

Sam furrows her brows, worried now. "I wouldn't laugh at you, Cat," she says seriously, and if she was a tactile person she may have reached over, placed a hand on her shoulder or knee, but she doesn't, instead keeping them planted in her lap. "You can tell me anything," Sam tacks on as an afterthought, shifting so that she's facing Cat straight-on instead of watching her from the corner of her eye.

"I feel really lonely," Cat admits, staring down at the sheets, her eyelashes casting dark shadows onto her cheekbones. "And I know I shouldn't, because I have you and Nona and Dice, which makes me feel really bad, but - "

"Cat," Sam says, cutting her off. "It's okay. Get to the point." Maybe that's harsher than she means to be, but Cat takes a breath, readies herself to continue, and Sam thinks she knows Cat better than she sometimes seems to think, knows how to make her talk, how to listen.

"I miss my parents," Cat says, finally, in a gush of air. "I miss them and I miss my brother and they don't call." Cat blinks a few times, squeezes her eyes closed and takes a breath, exhaling slowly, chest falling with the movement. "They never, ever call. Is it because - ?" Cat wrenches her eyes open, cuts herself off and takes another breath.

"Calm down," Sam says, "you're using up all the oxygen." It's a little distasteful, maybe, to try and make a joke out of something serious, but this is who Sam is; it's her defense mechanism, the only safe road to take. To tease, to kid around.

"Sorry," Cat apologizes, purposefully taking smaller breaths.

"No, it's - I was kidding, don't worry about it," Sam says lamely, frowning. "If it makes you feel better, my mom doesn't call either? I don't even think she knows I'm gone," Sam says, laughing a little too bitterly for her own tastes. She breathes out through her nose, maybe hoping she doesn't come off as angry. Or upset. Or hurt. "It doesn't mean they don't love you," Sam adds.

"I know," Cat agrees, bobbing her head a few times. "I just. Sometimes," she says, restarting, "I feel like my brother is more important than me. I feel like I'm their second puberty or whatever."

"Priority...?" Sam corrects through a soft chuckle.

"Whatever," Cat says, ducking down to hide the smile pulling at the ends of her mouth. "I'm trying to be sad, you know."

"I know," Sam says, but there is an edge of seriousness to her voice, an undercurrent of understanding. She doesn't know when or how she grew up a little, but she can feel it, suddenly, as though it's something that has always been there, hiding away in the corners of her skeleton bones. "I felt like that, too. With my mom," Sam says, forcing Cat to look at her. "I never felt like I came first. It was always her latest boyfriend, or her pets, or - whatever. Never me." Sam hesitates, tugging at the frayed end of the blanket. "I guess that's kind of why I'm sort of...mean, or whatever. I felt like I had to be, because doing bad things was the only way I could get attention from my mom."

"I don't think you're mean," Cat says, and when Sam meets her gaze, her eyes are wide and genuine, determined in a way Sam has never seen with Cat. It's startling, really, how honest she is.

"You didn't know me when I was younger," Sam says, shaking her head to hide the upwards tilt of her lips. "I met Carly and my life sort of took a turn for the better. If it weren't for her, I honestly don't know where I'd be."

"Right here, hopefully," Cat says, smiling a little sadly. "Now that you're here, I can't even imagine how things would be without you." Cat's smile dwindles away to nothing. She plucks at the ends of her pajama pants. "I think I'd be even more lonely."

"No kidding," Sam says quietly, scooting a little closer to Cat, until their knees are brushing. She puts an arm around her shoulders, pulls her close and squeezes, just to let her know she's there, that she's not going anywhere.

"I thought you weren't a hugger," Cat says, but her voice is lighter, less weighted by sadness, guilt, hopelessness.

"You looked like you needed it," Sam deflects, letting her go, moving backwards. _Don't get too close_, she tells herself, but she doesn't know how to stop herself from doing so, not when she has this burdensome need to protect her, to shield her from all the bad in the world. "You're not alone, Cat," Sam says after a silence.

Cat's eyes flicker to Sam's face at this, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips. "Neither are you," she says, and it hits Sam like a punch in the ribs, every breath leaving her at once. It surprises her, not for the first time since meeting Cat, that she _understands_.

"You should - " Sam starts, pausing to gather herself, to calm her beating heart. "You should call your parents in the morning. Before you go to school," she says. "I think they'd like to hear from you."

Cat nods, shifting underneath the covers and pressing close to Sam so they can share her pillow.

"Maybe you should call your mom, too," Cat says after a hesitation. "Just to remind her that you're not going to be there for a while." She turns to look at Sam, making sure she nods in affirmation before settling further under the blanket, curling into Sam when she mimics the movement.

When they're both quiet, pressed arm to arm and leg to leg, Cat reaches between them and clasps Sam's hand in her own. _Don't get too close_, Sam thinks, but holds on.


End file.
